Free Big Numbers by Jack Getze

wakes me up that night.
    Light from a hallway filters onto the straight-back chair at the foot of my steel bed. Oh, yeah. I forgot. I’m in the hospital again.
    On my left, an elderly roommate has kept the water-proof green curtain closed around his bed all night, even when I invited him to watch the Yankee-Dodger game with me, one of those inter-league games they play now. I think my geezer roommate might have been embarrassed by his chronic flatulence. Not that the curtain helps much with that. Whew. I have to remember not to eat the food here.
    The humming gets louder. A strange gush of sadness hits me behind the eyes. Wow. What the heck is that? Being such a loser, back in the hospital again? The pain in my knee and neck? Or…that humming. It reminds of something unpleasant, doesn’t it? Some ego-bruising event.
    When the memory comes, it moves quickly, like a short film. We open inside a marriage counseling session with my wife Susan, a scene where the shrink suggests we purchase a vibrator as a potential cure for our sexual problem —there ain’t any but more sex. Then cut to Susan’s telephone voice days later, “I had four orgasms today.” Seems while I was at work one afternoon, Susan drank a few glasses of wine, took a hot bath, and enjoyed incredible life-altering sex with our new Hitachi 3000. After that I was offered nothing but sloppy seconds. After six months of that, I needed an affair to repair.
    I mean how can a guy compete with something that’s fourteen inches long and vibrates?
     
     
    I open my eyes. The hospital room is filled with gray morning light.
    A dark human shape comes into focus at the foot of the steel bed and my head snaps off the pillow. Pain shoots down my neck. My blood pumps with adrenaline. Who is that?
    “Hello , Carr. I’m Detective Mallory, Branchtown Police.”
    I sigh, take a breath. My heart begins to slow down. I wonder if cops do these things on purpose. And I know this guy, too, thought we were sort of friends. Mallory is one of only six detectives on the Branchtown force, a tall Irishman with graying red hair and hard blue eyes. We coached T-ball together three years ago.
    “Hey, Jim. This an official visit?”
    “It’s official,” he says. “I need to ask you a few questions about the incident at Shore Securities yesterday. First, tell me in your own words exactly what happened when you encountered your client Samuel Attica?”
    “Samson, actually.”
    “Okay. Samson Attica.”
    I go through the whole episode ninety-nine-percent truthfully, using enough detail to make myself comfortable with the story. But in the end, it’s a story. Of course I could see Mr. Vic had a gun. His famous Smith & Wesson. But I’m not ratting out the boss.
    “You’re telling me you didn’t see a weapon in Vic Bonacelli’s hand?”
    “He could have had a gun,” I say. “He could have had a box of candy, or flowers. I didn’t look.”
    “You’re lying.”
    “I am not.”
    “Why? Scared you’ll lose your job? Vic already told us he was the shooter.”
    A much younger Branchtown detective scurries into my hospital room. It’s Mallory’s partner, I guess. The kid looks like an eighteen-year-old Eagle Scout. “Jim. I need to talk to you,” he says.
    Mallory and the Eagle Scout are only out of my sight and earshot maybe thirty seconds, but Detective Mallory is hot-wired when he saunters back to my bed. Flushed around the neck. Eyes brighter. Like a new user and current beneficiary of stimulant drugs.
    “You own a pickup truck with a camper?” Mallory says.
    “Yup.”
    “A yellow 1993 Chevy with lots of rust?”
    “Bought it three weeks ago.”
    Mallory and his young partner exchange a glance. When my former T-ball coaching mate puts his gaze back on me, Detective James Mallory of the Branchtown Police Department thinks he’s holding a straight flush to my pair.
    “Put your pants on, Carr. We’re going for a ride.”
     
     

 
    TWENTY-ONE
     
    I’m cold,